Pop. 70,503. In Lambton C., at the foot of L. Huron and head of the St. Clair R. and Hwys 40 & 402, linked by the Bluewater Bridge and a railway tunnel to Port Huron, MI, 96 km W of London.

In 1679, Sieur de Rene Robert Cavelier La Salle berthed Griffon at the site on her maiden voyage from Niagara to Green Bay, a voyage from which it never returned.

(The ship was presumed to have sunk m the Mississagi Strait off Manitoulin I. in L. Huron.) The place was known as Les Chutes (The Rapids) when the first settler, Ignace Cazelet (who later anglicized his name to Causley) arrived in 1807.

Lt. Richard E. Vidal was one of the first English-speaking settlers who arrived in 1832 to establish a trade route from The Rapids to Detroit.

On one of Vidal ' s periodic visits to England, his home was taken over by eight members of the Ferguson family, who turned it into the area's first tavern -- until Vidal returned and evicted them.

The French settlers wanted to retain the name Les Chutes; the English settlers wanted to call the place Buenos Aires, and Scottish settlers preferred the name New Glasgow.

At a meeting in 1836 attended by Lt.-Gov. Sir John Colborne, the governor of Canada, his suggestion of Port Sarnia as a name broke the deadlock.

Colborne had earlier served as governor of Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands, the Roman name of which had been Samia.

Samia is at the northern end of the St. Clair Parkway, a parks system administered by a commission of representatives of the Ontario government, the Cs. of Lambton and Kent, and the cities of Chatham and Sarnia.

The greatest concentration of Canada's petrochemical industries is just south of Sarnia, in an area nicknamed 'Chemical Valley.'

The Bluewater Bridge, built in 1938 to link Sarnia with Port Huron, is believed to be the only bridge in the world owned by two countries.

Postcards above used with permission from A Great Lakes Treasury of Old Postcards 2007 Lorenzo Marcolin, MD 176 pp. For Copies call the Huronia Museum 705 526 2844 or email lmarcolin@aol.com

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Map Below gives Canadian Geographical Names
Natural Resources Canada in the County of Lambton.

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This record last updated: December 3, 2014